Albanese slams Sydney Airport Corporation over blackout

Sydney Airport has been accused of prioritising profit over service after the blackout that shut down the second domestic terminal on Friday left thousands of school holiday travellers grounded.

Anthony Albanese, Labor's transport and infrastructure spokesman, on Sunday drew a direct link between the airport's electricity substation failure and what he said is a "lack of investment" by the monopoly owner Sydney Airport Corporation.

Qantas, which leases its T3 domestic terminal, has been been responsible for maintenance there but the Sydney Airport Corporation is responsible for T2, the scene of Friday's meltdown.

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"Sydney Airport is an airport in which considerable profits have been made over recent years but, of course, [there has been] a lack of investment back into the airport," Mr Albanese said on Sunday.

"I'd like to see real competition when it came to Sydney Airport, so that Sydney Airport lifts its game. Friday simply isn't good enough, that thousands of people were stranded around that airport."

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Sydney Airport, which saw revenues top $1.1 billion in 2013, said it has invested $2.4 billion since 2002 and would spend a further $1.2 billion over the next five years.

"Friday's outage was caused by a fault in a substation which also affected the airport's back-up power. Our priority was to work with airlines to help them get back on schedule and ensure as many passengers as possible could resume their travel plans," said a spokeswoman.

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A recent state of the airports report by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission rated Sydney as the worst for quality of service among the country's four largest airports, including Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.

The ACCC has urged Sydney and its interstate counterparts to invest more, highlighting in Sydney a "low quality of service" and "relatively low investment" despite the growing demand from its record 38 million annual passengers.

On Sunday it was announced that the NSW Government would fund nearly $250 million in road upgrades around the airport, with another $40 million from the federal government.

Mr Albanese said NSW taxpayers were "paying to fix up the roads around Sydney Airport so that Sydney Airport can make more profits".

"Since Sydney Airport was privatised in 2001, we have seen a lack of contribution back to the taxpayer," he said.

Mr Albanese has a long-running feud with the chairman of Sydney Airport, Max Moore-Wilton who he criticised last year for stepping straight from heading up the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet under John Howard to run the airport just after the government privatised the airport in 2002.